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30: Virtual TOD Services with Teiryn Shelton
531 Plays1 year ago
Teiryn discusses how she provides virtual TOD services and gives tips for teachers interested in trying it!
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Introduction to Virtual TOD Services
00:00:05
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to the Todd Pod, a podcast to support itinerant teachers of the Deaf and hard of hearing, SLPs, and other Deaf education professionals. I'm Deanna Barlow from Listening Fund, and today we're talking with Tierin Shelton about virtual TOD services. Thanks so much for being here today, Tierin.
00:00:22
Speaker
Hi, thank you for having me. I'm so excited to get into it about virtual services. I think it's going to be really interesting because I know a lot of people are curious about this topic. Could you tell everyone a little about yourself and what
Tierin's Background and Virtual Services
00:00:35
Speaker
you do? Yes, sure. I am Taran T-O-D-H-H on Pinterest.
00:00:40
Speaker
I work for the signing room and the online itinerant are two small startups that I also work for. I work for an agency in the state of California where I provide virtual itinerant services to their different schools here that need Teacher of the Deaf services.
00:00:59
Speaker
So I want to talk about those remote services. I want to know like, what's the setup on your end? What's it look like for the student? Because when I think of virtual teaching, I think of like pandemic teaching, but I imagine it's different than that. Yes, it's much different now than it was in the pandemic.
Transition to Virtual Teaching
00:01:16
Speaker
So I did not start off to be interested in being virtual teacher, but I was a military spouse. My husband has now since gotten out of the military, but for
00:01:28
Speaker
six years we were moving all around the country and it had become a very Easy job for me to have being a military spouse So when we had lived in a different state, I was in person I was in a small resource classroom and that's when I
00:01:48
Speaker
COVID happened. So I went from a resource room teaching to the virtual services, just like all of us did. And we were so unprepared at that time, I would say. I would also say that. Yeah, for sure. And so we were kind of just given this new way of teaching and told us to just run with it.
00:02:13
Speaker
Since then I have been back in the classroom and then I had moved to virtual teaching.
Virtual Teaching Setup and Benefits
00:02:19
Speaker
I work for an agency here in California and it really depends on your preference. So my setup right now is
00:02:29
Speaker
the same setup that I'm using to record this podcast with you. I'm using my laptop and I'm using a set of headphones. Most of my students are in school already. So it really depends on their IEP and their needs for their setting. But most generally you'll have students in a mainstream classroom or in a resource classroom already there at school.
00:02:55
Speaker
Now, I do have a few students that are on home hospital or those kind of settings, but generally most of my students are in school. And what is so great about that is that they have paras, interpreters, or other school staff to really support them in logging on and being able to access the service.
00:03:20
Speaker
So I do a lot of consultation work, as I'm sure you can imagine, where schools will just ask me, here's the IEP, here's where the student is, could you make recommendations? And that's being bang-boom easy. I have a large caseload of students that I do provide the direct services for, and that's where we get a little creative for those students that have maybe more needs or maybe specific needs that they have
00:03:47
Speaker
but it all really depends on the school, the student, and the agency that you work for.
Creative Solutions in Virtual Education
00:03:53
Speaker
Yeah, that sounds really interesting because I feel like that would solve a lot of the problems that we have as itinerants, like not having space or just those logistical issues of trying to get to a lot of students and not a lot of time because I imagine you don't need to take 30 minutes in between sessions when you're virtual. You can actually see a lot more kids. Is there anything you really like about being virtual?
00:04:15
Speaker
I like many things about being virtual and like you said, I do have to get creative in some instances. My agency highly recommends that there will be another adult in the room. So at times I will need to be pretty upfront with the school districts that I work for.
00:04:34
Speaker
Just to be sure that I'm protected as a teacher, and the student is protected as a student, you know, I am a younger provider. So sometimes it can be a little tricky in those situations, or I will need to make recommendations to the school to tell them
00:04:54
Speaker
This was not an appropriate setting. Let's try some different things. Like, for example, I think of one student that I had. He had bilateral cochlear implants and I was working with him. He is in a mainstream school.
00:05:10
Speaker
And the school had said, Oh, well, he can do his services in the school office.
Virtual Model's Effectiveness for Diverse Needs
00:05:18
Speaker
And you can just meet with him there. And I had tried it maybe once or twice, but it just did not work. And I'm sure you can imagine. Yeah, I was like, I can't imagine why like, the school office, no one ever goes in there. Oh, no, not at all. Not a busy place. Not teachers coming in and out and that kind of thing.
00:05:38
Speaker
And he wasn't using like headphones or anything like that. He was trying to connect to the computer, the Chromebook, through his cochlear implants with the Bluetooth. And so that was a whole thing. It's always an adventure. The Chromebooks are rough. Always an adventure with the Chromebooks.
00:05:58
Speaker
And so I just had to, you know, really talk to the special education teacher and his team and think, okay, how can we problem solve this to be a better situation so that he can get full access to his services? Yeah, that makes sense. I feel like those are some interesting logistical issues to work through. But if they have especially if they have like a para or like another adult like that, that's with them during the day, I could see that being a really good fit.
00:06:24
Speaker
Speaking of which, are there certain students that you feel like this model works really well for?
00:06:29
Speaker
Yes, this model works well for many different students, but really it's your job as the provider to be creative and make a lot of recommendations. That's one reason that I really enjoy virtual teaching. Many of these schools that I found are in bad spots, as you can probably imagine, because they're going to try to
00:06:55
Speaker
provide services as best as they can. They're at their own site. You're going to be kind of a last resort for them. They would prefer to do even emergency certificates or, you know, parent to teacher plans or something like that before they would ever contact for a virtual agency.
00:07:19
Speaker
So you can kind of understand that you're kind of trying to help these schools come out of a place of where they did not have services or inappropriate services or it wasn't working out. So generally many of these schools are very appreciative about your recommendations and your professionalism and they believe that you know what you're doing.
Parent Coaching in Virtual Settings
00:07:44
Speaker
Yeah. So in many situations, you can be creative and say, Okay, well, I'm not sure it works in this model, but let's try some new things. So I think of one student right now that I have, he has Down syndrome,
00:08:00
Speaker
many multiple disabilities, he's deaf, blind, and you would think from his profile that these kind of services would not be appropriate for him. And he actually was my first student that I took virtually. So I was actually very, very nervous about it. And I was like, Oh my goodness, what do we do? But
00:08:21
Speaker
since I had started virtual teaching, he is in a much better place now and the school is in a much better place now. So we had started maybe a little bit of ASL working on that to now I am helping the school create like a coffee cart signing Starbucks kind of life skills program for him. And
00:08:48
Speaker
it's been working out really amazing the school has been very appreciative and like very open to my suggestions and how that could be a better fit than just me sitting down to a computer with him and teaching him signing and visuals and stuff like that to where I'm like now all throughout his day I have you know worked with the other paras and shown them the strategies and
00:09:16
Speaker
really supporting more of the school climate than just the child. Yeah, I can really see how that would work because during the pandemic, I virtual taught for a long time because a lot of my schools were closed for a long time. And I did a lot of early intervention virtually, which is also something people think that wouldn't fit. But at least in New Jersey, where I am, early intervention is a parent coaching model. So it actually does
00:09:41
Speaker
work, especially it just forces you to do the parent coaching part because you can't do it yourself and a one-year-old is not going to
Handling Technical Challenges in Virtual Teaching
00:09:51
Speaker
Zoom with you. So I actually found that for some of the families, actually the parent coaching model over Zoom, that consultative model was actually really effective because it forced them to take ownership of the strategies and the
00:10:05
Speaker
activities and they just didn't have a choice. Like I couldn't be there to take it over. So they had to do it. So I can see how that would apply to some kids who maybe have a big team, kids who you think, oh, like they don't have the attention to do a virtual session for an hour. It's like, well, maybe that's not the point. Maybe if you're forced into more of a consultative role, that could actually be more beneficial because it makes the other the pair as the teachers like take ownership over that hearing piece and actually be more
00:10:34
Speaker
functional than if you were in person there for an hour. Absolutely. So I have a couple early intervention kiddos now, too, as well. And it's the same kind of idea. I'm coaching the parents and coaching the family and showing them the strategies so that they can apply it. And I found that they're really appreciative and they feel more apt to doing it because they don't have someone there. So maybe if you had someone physically
00:11:02
Speaker
to tell you the strategies, they would depend on you, you know, physically to do all of that. But now they can take some ownership, like you said. Yeah, that's a really interesting. I mean, I've thought about that for early intervention, but it's interesting to apply that to the school age students, too, because I can definitely think of students where that would be helpful. Just to get into some of like the technical stuff, like, do you do like listening checks? Do you troubleshoot equipment? Is there strategies you use to do that virtually?
00:11:31
Speaker
Yes and no. Like you said, a lot of the consultative model I support many of the teachers and paras and others on how to do those things.
00:11:41
Speaker
I also work for the online itinerant. So we provide many different virtual resources and virtual strategies for working on that kind of thing too. And I share many of those resources on my Pinterest. But one of my districts that I actually work for, I'm one of three.
00:12:02
Speaker
itinerant teachers. So in that kind of setting, I can have those teachers that need to be with the student to do those kind of things. And I'm more of a paperwork kind of teacher. And so I'm doing initial paperwork, I'm doing 504 paperwork,
00:12:21
Speaker
and they're kind of doing the groundwork with the students.
Organizational Strategies for Virtual Educators
00:12:26
Speaker
And so that model has worked out really well. I work for many different districts. That's one of the really benefits of being a virtual teacher. I don't have to take time out of my day to drive from site to site. I just get from Zoom to Zoom to Zoom. So you can help many more students, many more families, many more districts by going virtually, and that means more money for you too.
00:12:51
Speaker
Yeah, I never thought about the fact that it could be like a hybrid team I feel like that would actually make a lot of sense because a lot of at least I know for us like we're always short staffed like we have in person to these but like there's always a need for more and if an online Tod could take
00:13:06
Speaker
some of the paperwork, like you said, or some of the consults or some of the older kids who can zoom and like have a conversation effectively, like just to take some of the load off the people that are in the building that that would be more successful for everyone overall. And you could hit so many more kids. So
00:13:22
Speaker
I feel like when people think of like, oh, how can it be as effective? And it's like, well, one, it's way better than nothing, which is what we're facing if there's no one there. And two, there's a lot of kids that I think a scheduled Zoom might even be more effective than like trying to pull them to the hallway.
00:13:37
Speaker
Yes, for sure it is. And that's why it works in many different situations. Because think about when you're driving as a TOD. Maybe you don't know if your students there or not. And you're wasting that time driving. And they're absent when for me, it's just okay, I can quickly text the teacher. How's Johnny doing today? Is Johnny there? Can Johnny jump on the zoom?
00:14:00
Speaker
And many times the teachers prefer that because I am now having like a more deeper relationship with parents and with teachers because I use like a Google voice number. And so I'm giving that number out to everyone, which can get a little tricky for myself, because I'm not saving their numbers, but they're saving mine. So I'll get like a phone call like, Okay, are you getting on your zoom today? And I'm thinking, Okay, who's this from? And what am I doing today?
00:14:30
Speaker
But that has been really helpful and that has been really cool. Parents really enjoy that I have this kind of role because I'm like kind of a liaison between the parents and the school. So this kind of model, the parents feel like they have more access to me than if I was in person.
00:14:51
Speaker
Yeah, I could definitely see that because you're basically on your computer all day and obviously for a big chunk of that you're teaching. But I definitely felt when I was virtual teaching, I like I was more on top of my email. I was more on top of my paperwork because like when I had five minutes of downtime, I could check those things. Whereas now I mean, yeah, I check my email on my phone. So I feel like that's okay. But I hate having downtime in the car because they don't have internet. So it's like I can only do like so much if a student cancels and I'm like not in a building. Exactly.
00:15:21
Speaker
That was my biggest pet peeve is when I have a break in the day, but it's like I'm not anywhere. So I'm just like, okay, I'm going to stay in this parking lot for 20 minutes and do some paperwork for the student. Yeah, for sure. Could you tell us about some of your favorite activities to do virtually? What do you like to use when you're working with students directly?
00:15:39
Speaker
So this is another part. I try to be as individualized as possible. I worked for many students. So we actually have some trainings in the online itinerant for like how to create
00:15:54
Speaker
Google Slides for each child and you can just put in their activities there. So many of my students, I just create a Google Slide. I look at their goals and I pick and choose activities from different places. Put that into the Google Slide.
00:16:13
Speaker
And so I just always know to bring up Jimmy's Google Slides every time I see him. And that's my whole lesson plan for the day. Because I'm virtual, I have more flexibility to be able to pick and choose my activities. I'm not always on the fly. So I'm always researching
00:16:32
Speaker
other things that I can use with my kiddos. I love boom cards. Those are so helpful. It depends on your district really on if you're using like Zoom or Google Meets.
00:16:45
Speaker
they have different privacy regulations and so you'll need to contact the school and ask what platform you're going to be using because Google Meets doesn't have as great screen sharing abilities as Zoom does but Google Meets is more accessible for kids because it's just a link that you copy and
00:17:08
Speaker
paste into your browser. And many of my students use Google have the Chromebooks. So it just really depends on the situation. Yeah, I was Google me it was hard. It's just not as much there's not as much fun stuff as you like, right? I just like it.
00:17:26
Speaker
I was using the whiteboard feature. I would write all over stuff and I would give the kids mouse control and then they could do it. That was always a little risky. Yes, I love it. I love the mouse control. Let me try it. Let me just give it a shot. I remember doing it with a younger student and they would always just click other stuff and I was like, okay.
00:17:48
Speaker
I'm gonna go ahead and take that back now. But it was it was fun. I feel like it was I was learning new tech stuff like every week. I'm like, okay, let's just try it. But I want to go back to what you're saying about the Google slides, because I actually I love that idea. And I actually do something similar, even with my in person students, I call it like,
00:18:07
Speaker
like a journal like a because like we do it together but basically it's just anytime we do something even if it's offline we'll make a slide for it and we just like copy and paste we'll like take pictures and airdrop them over or like whatever it is and then it just like kind of keeps a record of everything we work on and then that way at the beginning of every session we go through it like briefly so it's just like that repetition of like do you remember last week we talked about this and like before we talked about that and that way they actually like
00:18:35
Speaker
retain the information because it's like, oh, it's like repetitious.
Using Google Slides for Enhanced Learning
00:18:39
Speaker
But I really like doing that. And I've talked about it a little bit and people ask me like, oh, can you make that for TPT? And I'm like, not really. Like it's very individualized and it's like bits and pieces of different things. And then I always let the kids like change the background to like whatever crazy gradient they want. So they're like, they're not even cute, you know? But I think that that's,
00:19:01
Speaker
You could do that in person or virtual, but I think that that's a great idea, especially for virtual, just to keep yourself organized. Yes, for sure. And I get the same questions too. Can you make this for TPT? Can you sell this? And I'm thinking, well, it's really specific to the student. Sometimes I even put their family members involved if they need to learn that vocabulary or their home involvement.
00:19:23
Speaker
And I put that in the slides too. And I have one student, she's life skills. And we do like community vocabulary and signs and stuff like that. And so I create social stories for her. And I put her picture in the social story. Yes, I love doing that.
00:19:41
Speaker
Yeah, she loves it. People ask me all the time to make social stories for different things. And I'm like, just take pictures of your kid, like, or like her head, like, you know, like, it's so much more meaningful if it's if it's pictures of them than clip art. So I do have a couple like generic ones, but that's always my go to like,
00:19:58
Speaker
thing when people ask me for that i'm like no no no just use the real pictures let's like put it in powerpoint it'll be great like trust me for sure we worked on a project too we had a training in the online itinerant for making apps
00:20:14
Speaker
for appearance. And so that sounds very ambitious, but it really was not as hard as I thought it would be. So what I did was I created Google Slides, and there is a certain setting that you can put into Google Slides.
00:20:32
Speaker
that will be the same size as a phone screen. And so you use you publish the Google Slides with a very specific link and you can use like bit.ly or tiny URL to as well if you wanted to create your own. And then you just give that to parents. And then what I do on each slide is I put information that parents would like to know such as like
00:20:58
Speaker
the school calendar or when I'm going to be there and see their student, I put phone numbers that they would need to call, access to resources that they might need, links to their hearing equipment and their hearing aid manuals and things like that, that might be helpful for them. And parents really love it.
00:21:20
Speaker
And so they can just slide through on their own phone and get all of that information. And always, I always put my Google voice number on there too. And so they can contact me if they have any questions. That's a cool little tip. I never heard, I haven't tried that before, but I like that as like a little home base for them to have everything they need to keep it organized, but also easy for you because it's all digital. So easy to update, easy to change if you need to. Very cool.
Tech Tools for Organization and Communication
00:21:50
Speaker
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00:22:22
Speaker
Speaking of tech tips, do you have any suggestions for staying organized digitally? And the reason I asked this specifically is because I used to be so organized. And then I would be so good with my email where everything had folders. I had an inbox zero. Everything was in a folder. Queen? No, not anymore. Then the pandemic hit. And I got 500 emails a day, and I simply could not keep up. And I've never recovered.
00:22:54
Speaker
So between my desktop and my email and like I have like certain systems for keeping my resources organized, but I definitely feel like it could be better. So like the Google slides is a good tip. But do you have any other like things about staying organized digitally? Because I feel like when you're on your computer all day, it's so easy to get overwhelmed.
00:23:10
Speaker
Yes, it definitely is easy to get overwhelmed. And especially like I said, parents and teachers feel like they have more access to me. So I'm I do believe I'm getting more messages than I would be if I was in person. But I am still like old school down to my core. I love to write things down, even still now that I'm virtually. So what I do for myself is I create like Google,
00:23:40
Speaker
drive and I make Google folders for each of my students to put like their IEP at a glance or those kind of information that I get from the school. But my own personal organization, I love to write things down. So my checklists or my data collection is
00:24:01
Speaker
physical so I have folders like the file folders that you get from Target and I just put each student has a name and each school has a file folder and so I can just pull that out and sometimes I print things and
00:24:15
Speaker
But mostly for my data collection, I write it down. And then meetings, that is wild for me because I work for multiple districts. And so I have to also remember in my head, what district, what teacher, what school, when is their meeting? So it's a lot to remember. So I color code. I color code a lot of things.
00:24:38
Speaker
I was trying to think about like how many schools that I actually work for and I work for over 55 right now. Oh my God.
00:24:46
Speaker
It's crazy. I have a hard time with that when it's like 15. I can't imagine 55. But when you're virtual, you can. You can. Yeah. You can just go from Zoom to Zoom. So what I do is I have an office kind of room in my house. And so I will treat this like it really is a classroom. So I will take the students' calendars, and they're all over my wall.
00:25:10
Speaker
specific resources like how to write a progress note that's on my wall, phone numbers, I put that post that on my wall. So I can just like look around inside my office space and see all of these things. I also use Google Calendar as a way to schedule my students. So now a really cool feature of Google Calendar. It also has like a scheduling feature.
00:25:38
Speaker
So I will give that link to set up like a schedule meeting with me and I'll give that to all the teachers. I'll give that to all the parents in case they ever want to book me and they can see my calendar and they can see my schedule and they can see where I'm going to be at and book themselves somewhere you know in between to squeeze a meeting in.
00:25:57
Speaker
That's me. I didn't know Google Calendar had that now. Yeah. I learned it from the online itinerant. We had a training in there about like how to stay organized and those kinds of things. And so I took a lot of information from that.
00:26:09
Speaker
Yeah, I might have to try that because I often have like case managers or service coordinators asking for meeting times and I'm emailing back and forth and there's got to be a better way. Like, you know, there is. I just have to block out my travel time because I don't like to do meetings when I'm driving. Some people do, but I don't. I feel like it's too stressful. So I always book it for like when I get somewhere.
00:26:32
Speaker
I'll do it in my car. I don't mind doing it in my car, but I can't do it while I'm driving. It's too stressful
Professionalism in Virtual Teaching
00:26:37
Speaker
for me. Yeah, I hate driving in general. So the virtual thing is a really great thing for me. I have done a few meetings in the car over the phone and I'm the same way. I don't like to do it because it's hard for me to separate my brain from driving and be as involved in the meeting as I would like.
00:26:57
Speaker
Yeah, and it's funny because like I love talking on the phone while I'm driving, but I guess that's different than being in a meeting. Like I love chit chatting with like my mom while I'm driving if she's free, but like actually being in a meeting and having to like think about what I'm saying, you know, in like a work context. Not my favorite. So that's why I like to park. Okay.
00:27:16
Speaker
Is there anything else that you want to use to know about teaching virtually? It's not for everyone. It takes a lot of organization. It takes a lot of planning, but it can be very helpful for teachers, especially if you want to take
00:27:34
Speaker
like a lighter caseload. I have schools that have just maybe one or two students and they can't, you know, really provide a physical person because the caseload is so minimal. So if you wanted, you could do just like a part time virtual TOD position and just take maybe one or two students here or there. It really is fun. I really enjoy it.
00:27:59
Speaker
If you're not so tech savvy and you're not very involved in the online space, it might be very challenging for you. You have to be on your game. Like I said, I take many, many schools and many, many students.
00:28:14
Speaker
So I have to make sure my mental health is in a good place too as well. You are in your house most of the time or I love to travel and do this too as well, but you have to make sure that you're blocking off time for the students and everything. Sometimes I will see virtual providers that kind of slack off a little bit and it kind of breaks my heart, but they have the ability to do that.
00:28:41
Speaker
because they're virtual and there's not very much oversight of us to be honest, because we're kind of in our house. So definitely, if you're going to do it, you need to make the commitment to stay organized and provide the service. But I find that now we're kind of switching to more of a virtual platform and more of a virtual way of working.
00:29:07
Speaker
So I think that it's really helpful and beneficial for like older students for self advocacy because they're learning about how to get on a zoom and what's appropriate and a zoom meeting and how to you know have virtual learning.
Role of Agencies in Virtual Teaching
00:29:23
Speaker
because they might have to do that in college one day or they might have to do that in their job one day. Insurance is also something that needs to be shared too because you're not getting health insurance or anything like that from a virtual standpoint if you work like for an agency. So you'll have to find your own outside insurance.
00:29:44
Speaker
It worked well for me because I've been a military spouse and so I have Tricare and so I didn't really need to worry about the health insurance part. Even if you work for an agency as a full-time employee, is the pay not standard? Is it based on how many students you see? It's hourly.
00:30:01
Speaker
So that is a really wonderful thing that I like working from an agency rather than being an independent contractor. So my agency is the one that negotiates my pay and talks to the school districts on my behalf about that. So sometimes, well from my experience,
00:30:20
Speaker
I do not know what the district is. I do not know what their caseload is. I don't know how many students or anything like that. The serious questions until I'm in the interview with the school. So in my experience, the agencies, they tell you that they're going to pair you with the school district that fits you best.
00:30:44
Speaker
I'm not sure if that's actually really what is happening there, but they say that they're doing that. Sometimes if you work for an agency, they're not focused on this job, teachers of the deaf. They might be contracting many different professionals like SLPs and OTs.
00:31:06
Speaker
And you're just kind of in there as well. And so they're not going to be able to understand really what it is that you specifically do. So they might say that they're pairing you with the school that fits you best, but I'm not sure if that's happening.
Becoming an Independent Virtual Teacher
00:31:24
Speaker
And then I meet with the school district
00:31:26
Speaker
That's when I do my interview with them and I ask these burning questions like how many students and all of that. But the agency takes care of the pay and your hours. So the school will look at the caseload and say, I think this is 10 hours a week or I think this is five hours a week.
00:31:46
Speaker
And then after I meet with them, I can look at the caseload and I could think, I think that's going to take me more, or I think that's not going to take me as much. And I tell the agency and the agency has that conversation with the school. I tell that time, sorry, is some of that time.
00:32:03
Speaker
like paperwork time and administrative time, or is it all direct service time? It is whatever you want it to be. So the school districts, they will make a guess of what that will take, how much direct versus how much paperwork time, and then they will tell you what they think it will be. But you can always make that
00:32:28
Speaker
recommendation for yourself if you're looking at it and you're thinking that's much higher needs than just 10 hours a week and that even happened for me last year as well. I had one student that I had provided so many services for and then after his IEP meeting the team really decided that he was going to need some more support from me.
00:32:49
Speaker
And I told my agency that I needed more hours to be able to provide all of that effectively. And so the school district and the agency helped me to get some more hours for that district. And the agency will always, the agency wants to make money too. So the agency is always going to try to get you more money too as well.
00:33:10
Speaker
So they're going to look at your professionalism and try to get you to take a higher offer because they want a higher offer too because they're taking half of your pay or whatever percentage of your pay.
00:33:23
Speaker
Now, they also help you to get insurance because you're going to need professional liability insurance as well. And then they're also not going to take out taxes. So you have to be very educated on taxes and how to report that come tax time. But I've just been using like a tax person. So I go to H&R Block and I just get a tax person to figure it all out for me.
00:33:52
Speaker
Because like I said, I work for the signing room and I work for the online itinerant and I work for this agency. So I've got all kinds of crazy tax things going on. Yeah, for sure. And then but you can make write offs for whatever it is that you use. So sometimes your agency is not going to provide you with like testing materials or a document camera or things that you think that you're going to need.
00:34:19
Speaker
And so you can use that as tax write offs, but you are going to have to purchase that generally yourself. Some school districts might provide you and say like the one I told you about that I'm the one of three itinerant teachers, we kind of share that testing material if we need to use it. But other districts like might be in a really bad shape and just not know what to do. And so you can ask the district if they'll purchase something for you. If not, then you'll purchase it yourself and then do a tax write off.
00:34:47
Speaker
Yeah, interesting. So that sounds kind of similar, honestly, to being an independent contractor. I guess the difference would be just that you have to find your own districts if you're an independent contractor and you have to set your own pay. Yes. So you can do this independently. You just have to be really good at marketing and really good at putting yourself out there. Because like I said, these school districts are mostly in a bad spot sometimes. And so you're going to be their last resort.
00:35:16
Speaker
And they're going to want to contact an agency before they just find a random person like that is marketing themselves online. So I haven't gotten to a place where I could be fully independent. I would love that's my next like professional goal is to drop the agency one day and be fully independent.
00:35:39
Speaker
But for me right now working with an agency because I'm not a super great at marketing myself. That's not what I went to school for. I went to school to teach not to market myself. So I have a colleague that has been with an agency for a while.
00:35:57
Speaker
and then built a great amazing rapport with the schools and just said, Hey, I can cut you a deal if we cut the agency out and I can just work for you. So hopefully within a couple of years, I can build those reports with the school districts that I really enjoy and that really work
Licensing and Logistics for Remote Teaching
00:36:16
Speaker
well with me. And then I can drop that agency.
00:36:19
Speaker
Yeah, that makes sense that it would be the kind of thing you have to ease into. And honestly, it makes sense that you'd want to like see if you like it first, even like with an agency, it's a little more low, not low stakes, but you have a little backup with some of the admin stuff. And it's easier to get like clients and school districts and whatnot. Like if someone's giving them to you, obviously, it seems like that would be a good way for people to start if they were interested in pursuing this. And then, you know, feeling it out, seeing if they like it, and then eventually going the independent contractor route once
00:36:49
Speaker
they're more established and have some contacts. Yes, that's my highest recommendation. If anyone wanted to go virtual, I would say start with an agency. See if you like it. See if it works well with you. And you might have some school districts that is just not really working out. They might be in a bad shape and you might look at the district and make some recommendations and it might
00:37:12
Speaker
you know, not be a good fit. And then you can always talk to your agency and say, I'm not sure this is a good fit. If you are independent, you might not be able to have that ability to have that freedom, and things like that. So I would definitely say, try it out, try an agency, see if you like it, and then build a rapport with the schools. And then if you wanted to be fully independent, work on that. And then also work on marketing yourself too, because
00:37:40
Speaker
if one district sees that you're fully independent and they really like you and you're you're really good at your craft and they really enjoy that the school districts are going to be talking to each other and so if they find out that you're independent there you can mark it and say oh well they really like me doing this independently would you like me to do that too and so you can just even build your connection like that too professionally
00:38:05
Speaker
Yeah, that's a really good idea. If you're in California and you're certified in California, can you only take virtual kids in California?
00:38:12
Speaker
At this moment, yes, I like I said, I was a military spouse. So I've had teaching licenses in like five states now so far. So yeah, you can take students in any state that you have a certification in. So at this point, I'm just holding California, I did not renew my other states. But you definitely could like you said that you're in New Jersey, if you had a California license as well as New Jersey.
00:38:40
Speaker
then you could work in New Jersey and in California. I have a colleague that is a virtual teacher in Florida and she is fully independent contractor and she can work from any other state. So she can she can have her license in Florida
00:38:59
Speaker
And she can teach kids that are physically in Florida, but she could go to Alabama for the weekend and, you know, work from Alabama. My agency does not like me to do that. So if I'm going to be in the state of California and have my license in the state of California,
00:39:17
Speaker
my physical body has to be in the state of California to teach. But I don't think that that's like a law. I'm not sure where your physical body has to be. But I do really enjoy traveling. So I do travel around the state, you know, with my position. But if you were a fully independent contractor, you might have some more travel freedom. She actually went to Europe a couple of weeks ago and she taught from
Contact Information and Podcast Wrap-up
00:39:45
Speaker
Europe. But the time difference was
00:39:47
Speaker
Yeah, I'm going to say that time difference. So crazy. Yeah, that's so interesting. Thank you so much for sharing all those details because I feel like that's the info people need to know. Tell me how my health insurance, tell me how much I'm getting paid. How is this actually going to work logistically for people? I appreciate you sharing all that information because it's super helpful. If people have other questions or if they just want to reach out to you, do you have contact info or any resources that you'd like to share?
00:40:16
Speaker
Yes, absolutely. Pinterest is starting to be the thing now. So I've been sharing a lot of virtual resources on Pinterest. My name is Tyrin T-O-D-H-H. You can also find me at the signing room and at the online itinerant on Instagram.
00:40:33
Speaker
Great, I'll link those below, too. So if you want to just go ahead and click that, you can grab those links. And thanks so much for listening to today's episode. As always, a full transcript and links that Tyrin mentioned and anything else will be in the show notes below and at listentotodpod.com. If you have any questions or you'd like to be a guest on the Tod Pod, please feel free to send me a DM on Instagram at Listeningfun or post in the TOD Community Facebook group if you have any questions.
00:41:01
Speaker
Thanks again so much for being here, Tyrin, and everyone else. Have a fantastic day. Bye. Thank you. Bye.